Mark Attwood | Internet Marketing Expert | Speaker | Authorhttp://markattwood.com
Tue, 31 Mar 2015 16:58:13 +0000en-GBhourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1Rank Reveal – Just How useful is this software in SEO?http://markattwood.com/software-reviews/rank-reveal-just-how-useful-is-this-software-in-seo/
http://markattwood.com/software-reviews/rank-reveal-just-how-useful-is-this-software-in-seo/#commentsTue, 31 Mar 2015 16:57:54 +0000http://markattwood.com/?p=3003The answer is – incredibly. This new Rank Reveal review video shows you how powerful it is for helping you to get higher rankings by using the data inside the software to upgrade your web pages with keywords you had no idea about! I’m loving it. Get your copy here.

]]>The answer is – incredibly. This new Rank Reveal review video shows you how powerful it is for helping you to get higher rankings by using the data inside the software to upgrade your web pages with keywords you had no idea about! I’m loving it. Get your copy here.

]]>http://markattwood.com/software-reviews/rank-reveal-just-how-useful-is-this-software-in-seo/feed/0Video Marketing eBook – The 7 Step Blueprint to Making More Money with Online Video Marketinghttp://markattwood.com/business/marketing/video-marketing-ebook-the-7-step-blueprint-to-making-more-money-with-online-video-marketing/
http://markattwood.com/business/marketing/video-marketing-ebook-the-7-step-blueprint-to-making-more-money-with-online-video-marketing/#commentsFri, 27 Mar 2015 16:31:14 +0000http://markattwood.com/?p=3000Video marketing and video SEO have never been hotter. The opportunities for many businesses are simply huge – but you need to have a strategy and you need to know all about optimising and syndicating, which is why I wrote this ebook for you. To grab your copy, just click here: Video Marketing EBook To […]

]]>Video marketing and video SEO have never been hotter. The opportunities for many businesses are simply huge – but you need to have a strategy and you need to know all about optimising and syndicating, which is why I wrote this ebook for you. To grab your copy, just click here: Video Marketing EBook

New technology in keyword research always excites me, and this new piece of SEO software from SEOPressor creator Daniel Tan is no exception. This is my Rank Reveal Review.

Daniel is calling this world’s first ‘reverse rank tracking’ tool. What amazed me here was when he told me that his new, innovative product actually tracked over 300,000+ rankings keywords for his customers within the first 24 hours of its launch.

It is incredibly important for us to know what kind of keywords our sites are actually ranking for. Not just the ones that we already know or are working on, but any and all keywords that are ranking on Google, even the ones that we are not aware of!

I am already finding it very handy to have a tool that tracks each and every single ranking keyword for our sites, one that constantly updates the ranking keywords so we don’t miss a beat in our SEO.

Without those hidden, unrevealed ranking keywords, we would have to keep on battling using conventional tools just to rank on the first page of Google, probably with only a few choice keywords. Sometimes this can take months!

This is exactly why you need to check out this brand new rank tracking tool: RankReveal

Whether you are a fresh beginner to SEO looking for a break or a seasoned professional with years of experience, this incredible tool has unique features that will definitely help you in your market or niche. RankReveal can unfold and reveal to you all the ranking keywords that your sites are currently ranking on. Pure SEO Gold.

]]>http://markattwood.com/software-reviews/rank-reveal-review-more-keyword-amazeballs/feed/2More epic SEO growth for one of my lovely clientshttp://markattwood.com/business/marketing/more-epic-seo-growth-for-one-of-my-lovely-clients/
http://markattwood.com/business/marketing/more-epic-seo-growth-for-one-of-my-lovely-clients/#commentsFri, 13 Mar 2015 12:36:45 +0000http://markattwood.com/?p=2988Just got off Skype with the lovely Soila from The Divorce Magazine. She invested in our Kickstarter SEO package in December, and is now seeing the benefits with a 100% growth in organic traffic. If you look at the suggested bids in adwords for some of her target keywords: Even if you took a conservative […]

]]>Just got off Skype with the lovely Soila from The Divorce Magazine. She invested in our Kickstarter SEO package in December, and is now seeing the benefits with a 100% growth in organic traffic.

If you look at the suggested bids in adwords for some of her target keywords:

Even if you took a conservative estimate that this traffic would cost £1 per click in Adwords, the additional traffic over the course of 12 months, based on this increase not going up any further (which it will) is worth £10,296 for an investment that was 20% of that!

Do the maths – SEO with us costs a maximum 20% of the equivalent Google Adwords cost. Not too shabby, is it.

Next step – total domination of the divorce market with an email autoresponder sequence, an FB strategy, a video domination strategy, and a backend income plan to die for.

I love my job!

If you want to see what our SEO packages can do for your business, contact us.

]]>http://markattwood.com/business/marketing/more-epic-seo-growth-for-one-of-my-lovely-clients/feed/07 Quick Tips to help your site rank higher in Googlehttp://markattwood.com/business/marketing/7-quick-tips-to-help-your-site-rank-higher-in-google/
http://markattwood.com/business/marketing/7-quick-tips-to-help-your-site-rank-higher-in-google/#commentsThu, 12 Mar 2015 18:06:06 +0000http://markattwood.com/?p=2980Let’s get straight to it: 1.Mobile Friendliness Google has recently issued an algorithm update with a deadline of April 21st, after which sites that are NOT mobile friendly will be penalised in their rankings. They put out a statement recently that states: “Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a […]

Google has recently issued an algorithm update with a deadline of April 21st, after which sites that are NOT mobile friendly will be penalised in their rankings.

They put out a statement recently that states:“Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices.”

Site speed can be down to factors like your server, the code on your site, unoptimised images and so on.

Fortunately, there is a great free tool you can use to check the problems your site may have called GTMetrix. Check it out here.

4. Basic Stuff

You need to make sure you have basic stuff on your site to ensure Google trusts you like:

– a cookie policy statement
– a terms and conditions page
– your full postal address (preferably on every page)

This is SEO-101, but I see sites without these all the time, so please check you’ve got them covered.

5. Being “Alive” in their eyes

The more you update your site, the more regularly Google will come back and check it.

If you have a static site, you’re in trouble. In an ideal world, you should have a WordPress blog on your site and you should be updating it regularly, preferably with your GOLD keywords. If you do have WordPress, make sure you’re using the Yoast Plugin – it’s brilliant.

It’s long been established that Google loves posts and pages with YouTube videos on (they own YouTube, so it makes sense). Ideally, you should have videos on your pages and posts that are optimised for the keywords that the page or post is optimised for.

If you want to get 100 fully optimised videos made and syndicated across all the major video channels fast for only £29.99 each, take a look at how my friend and client Jamie Pearson got a 10,000% return on investment doing just this here

7. Optimising (and syndicating) your images

Apart from changing your image file sizes (something your GTMetrix test will probably throw up), you also need to make sure your image files are named after your gold keywords along with your web address.

]]>http://markattwood.com/business/marketing/7-quick-tips-to-help-your-site-rank-higher-in-google/feed/4Google Signpost New Ranking Signal – Time to Pay Serious Attention to Mobile Searchhttp://markattwood.com/business/marketing/google-signpost-new-ranking-signal-time-to-pay-serious-attention-to-mobile-search/
http://markattwood.com/business/marketing/google-signpost-new-ranking-signal-time-to-pay-serious-attention-to-mobile-search/#commentsMon, 09 Mar 2015 15:58:03 +0000http://markattwood.com/?p=2970Mobile search is getting bigger. Exponentially bigger. Most business owners know they need to have a mobile-friendly site, but many put it off (including me) because it’s seems as bit of a “nice to have” rather than “essential”. Well, how’s about this statement by Google to put a rocket up your backside? You can read […]

]]>Mobile search is getting bigger. Exponentially bigger. Most business owners know they need to have a mobile-friendly site, but many put it off (including me) because it’s seems as bit of a “nice to have” rather than “essential”.

Well, how’s about this statement by Google to put a rocket up your backside?

In a nutshell, they are giving us a deadline for an algorithm update that is going to have significant effects on website rankings. If you ain’t mobile friendly, you’re going down. This is what they’re saying:

“Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices.”

]]>http://markattwood.com/business/marketing/google-signpost-new-ranking-signal-time-to-pay-serious-attention-to-mobile-search/feed/1How I learned to live (with thanks to the Bondi Hipsters)http://markattwood.com/life-is-easy/how-i-learned-to-live-with-thanks-to-the-bondi-hipsters/
http://markattwood.com/life-is-easy/how-i-learned-to-live-with-thanks-to-the-bondi-hipsters/#commentsSat, 07 Mar 2015 10:22:06 +0000http://markattwood.com/?p=2966I’ve never worked for a corporation. Actually I lied. I spent 4 years in the RAF. The most corporate of corporations. Learning to kill people efficiently in the name of some German Queen with a million pound hat. Then I spent a few months working in canary Wharf in 1991 working for the Daily Torygraph. […]

Actually I lied. I spent 4 years in the RAF. The most corporate of corporations. Learning to kill people efficiently in the name of some German Queen with a million pound hat.

Then I spent a few months working in canary Wharf in 1991 working for the Daily Torygraph.

That’s about it.

Getting on the tube every morning was a bit like this:

Despite me being a marketer and going on about making money, it’s not for the sake of money. I spent most of my twenties railing against the machine. I wrote poetry, I did stand up comedy, I managed bands (badly), I wrote and directed plays. I made zero money and had the time of my life.

At 30, I decided to make money. Not because I wanted anything materialistic (I was quite happy in my Moss Side terraced hovel), but because I wanted to have adventures. I wanted to travel more. I wanted to have a family.

Being skint didn’t really help, so I decided to start a business.

It was not my first business. I’d already started and sold a magazine for the courier industry. I’d already had two theatre companies (although I call them businesses in the very loosest of terms. “Hobbies with banks accounts” would be more appropriate).

This was the first business I set up with the sole aim of making moolah. It was a promotional marketing business. It made a lot of money, most of which I wasted on fast cars, champagne, loose women and other nocturnal pleasures. The business lives on without me.

I learned quickly that money could easily take you over if you had no purpose. At that time, my only purpose was to make money, which wasn’t serving me, so I had to find a new purpose.

It came in the form of a marriage and five children.

Because of these I slaved away at making my new venture a success. It was a meteoric rise for a kid from a council house. Millions of pounds just flowed easily towards me. Only problem was it was more than we knew what to do with. Then 2008 came. The crash. The biggest robbery in the history of the world. The beginning of the age of austerity where millionaire satanic peadophiles really moved up a gear in their heist of the people, or “useless eaters” as they lovingly refer to us.

It was the time when I learned all about the gangsters that run the world. Not just the ones that threaten to kidnap your children (I had that), but the other ones. The really bad guys. The snakes in suits. The bankers. The politicians. The inland revenue. The corporations.

These people are little more than common thieves. They own everything, including you and me. When you get a birth certificate, that’s you being incorporated. That’s you as a legal fiction. That’s your name being CAPITALISED in formal letters. That’s you on a path to being educated to be in constant fear of red ink (financial demands in the post) and yellow paint (no parking zones).

That’s you getting a mortgage (which means “death grip” in French). That’s you working your nuts off for some mystical and imaginary retirement sometime in the future. That’s you delaying all the dreams you had as a child until the kids have grown up or the mortgage is paid off, until you’re too old and stupid and infirm to do anything about those dreams any more.

The monetary system is a system of slavery. The corporate system is a system of slavery. You are not a slave unless you choose to be.

Yes I teach people how to make more money, but only because I can’t personally change the system we are currently in. But I can hack about with it, and getting more money is stage one in your plan to be free of the system. To operate on it’s borders rather than in it’s guts.

If you work for a corporation my advice is get out. Now. While your soul still has a chance. If you own a business, my advice is automate it and outsource as much as you can. If you work for a small business, get some terms from your boss that serve your happiness. Work from home, work remotely, be involved and responsible for the success of the business, don’t just get compensated for your time. Make a difference.

Travel. Have more sex. Eat more raw organic food. Dance. Sing. Learn a language. Learn an instrument. Laugh. Tell bad jokes. Fucking swear. Stand up for truth. Pass through fear. Study quantum physics. Stop reading newspapers. Stop watching the “programmes” on TV (it’s called programming for a reason). Go on a retreat. Jump out of a plane. Tell your family you love them. Give something to someone that needs something anonymously. Stop waiting for anything.

Live.

P.S. thankyou to the Facebook friend who introduced me to the Bondi Hipsters. You know who you are.

]]>http://markattwood.com/life-is-easy/how-i-learned-to-live-with-thanks-to-the-bondi-hipsters/feed/0Keyword Tapp Review – Keyword Research Just Got A Whole Lot Betterhttp://markattwood.com/software-reviews/keyword-tapp-review-keyword-research-just-got-a-whole-lot-better/
http://markattwood.com/software-reviews/keyword-tapp-review-keyword-research-just-got-a-whole-lot-better/#commentsTue, 24 Feb 2015 17:11:13 +0000http://markattwood.com/?p=2939If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know I am a fan of keyword research being the foundation for almost everything you do online. In my Technophobes Guide to Internet Marketing Success, I teach how to use the Keyword Planner inside Google Adwords simply because that’s a foundation course and I like […]

My keyword research journey started in 2003 with the excellent Wordtracker from the Mindel brothers. Over time, other tools came out like Market Samurai which was the market leader for years, until Google removed their data from the free web.

Search has changed a lot. It’s not just about Google (although that’s where most of my clients with real-world businesses still need to focus because the local search markets still have so many easy pickings). It’s about YouTube, Amazon, Yahoo, Bing and EBay.

Anything that helps us find new keywords, and especially converting keywords and keywords with commercial intent has got to be a VGT (very good thing), so this is my Keyword Tapp Review.

The new Keyword Tapp tool is exactly that. A VGT. It pulls in keyword data from ALL of these search engines, each of which has around 30% keywords that are UNIQUE to it and when you mix in the fact that, particularly on Amazon and Ebay, you have really good long-tail keywords that have Commercial Intent – Bingo! You’ve now got access to data which will make you more money faster, which is what it’s all about online.

This software is perfect for anyone that has any kind of web presence. It’s great for local keyword digging, affiliate marketing, youtube marketing – whatever. If you find keyword research a bit confusing, don’t forget you can get professional keyword research done by the team at Attwood Digital, but if you feel like having a crack yourself with a tool that makes it a whole lot easier, you can take a look at the demo of this software here.

In case you need a refresher Keyword Research Tutorial, here’s how I outline my Red-Amber-Green-Gold KW Research System using the Planner – the principles are essential whichever search engine you’re getting data from:

]]>http://markattwood.com/software-reviews/keyword-tapp-review-keyword-research-just-got-a-whole-lot-better/feed/0Don’t Be Evil, the Documentary – a review of a fascinating new film that needs your helphttp://markattwood.com/business/dont-be-evil-the-documentary-a-review-of-a-fascinating-new-film-that-needs-your-help/
http://markattwood.com/business/dont-be-evil-the-documentary-a-review-of-a-fascinating-new-film-that-needs-your-help/#commentsFri, 20 Feb 2015 13:39:07 +0000http://markattwood.com/?p=2927There is a fascinating new movie trying to raise funds (on indiegogo here) from pissed-off business owners that got slapped by the Panda and Penguin updates in recent years. It’s being made by the excellent SEO Josh Bachynski. I was a “victim” of those updates because I had many pages with duplicate content and an […]

]]>There is a fascinating new movie trying to raise funds (on indiegogo here) from pissed-off business owners that got slapped by the Panda and Penguin updates in recent years. It’s being made by the excellent SEO Josh Bachynski.

I was a “victim” of those updates because I had many pages with duplicate content and an anchor text percentage that was deemed too high in Google new goggles. It was a big slap to my ego because I had been at No.1 for the term “skip hire” for about 6 years after mastering the “dark art” of SEO.

I even had an ex-employee writing emails to my investors taking massive glee over the fact that we had fallen and pointing to the “fact” that this meant I did not know what I was doing in SEO. It was an interesting time that literally put thousands of SEO agancies out of business, or at least changing direction and rebranding themselves as “Digital Marketing”, “Social Media” or “Content” agencies.

The trailer for the film is below. It takes it’s title “Don’t Be Evil” from the strapline that Google launched itself with back in the late nineties.

Although the decimation of so many businesses that relied on their website rankings for a living is no laughing matter, I have often found the idea of “morality” over SEO and web rankings to be rather amusing. I had one suspicious agency owner (who took it upon himself to write a load of bollocks about me online under the pseudonym “SEO Sherlock”) who tried to tease out of me whether I did “black hat” or “white hat” SEO (I told him a load of lies about outsourcing to India, which I have never in fact done, just to throw him off the scent).

“In search engine optimization (SEO) terminology, black hat SEO refers to the use of aggressive SEO strategies, techniques and tactics that focus only on search engines and not a human audience, and usually does not obey search engines guidelines”

Was I doing Black Hat SEO? Not as far as I knew. I just knew that getting lots of links using my target keyword as the anchor text got me to the top of Google and made approximately £20m in the process.

I mean, what business would not, in all seriousness, NOT want to be at the top of Google for all their major search terms? Of course people did whatever it took to get there. There were no “rules”, no official body that could tell you to do things one way or another under rule of law. Heck, Google itself was having to play catchup so fast that it was not going to outline any laws beyond some vague guidelines in webmaster tools. It was the wild west, open season. A great big roller-coaster ride called “Cat and Mouse” between the Big G and everyone who wanted a piece of the traffic it was generating.
Do I regret using those tactics back in the day? Of course not! My morality was based based on my need to feed my family, pay my employees and succeed in business. I was not hurting anyone by being at the top of Google. I was not “gaming” their system. I was just doing what needed to be done at the time, and I was very proud of myself.

Possibly too proud, for when the two P’s came to town, I took a fall. It hurt. I went from several hundred free leads a day to several dozen. I, like the rest of the SEO industry, was dazed and confused. We all found ourselves with a sore head and sorer backsides having just fallen off our collective horse that had been galloping across the desert but was now disappearing rapidly into the sunset.

I took some deep breaths and decided the best course of action was inaction. I was not going to “do” any more SEO until the dust had settled. I stayed like this, licking my wounds, for about 18 months. Adwords came back into action (although at vastly increased prices), and I diversified. I worked on conversion rates. Instead of focusing on getting millions of leads, I focused on working the leads that we did get far harder. We got leaner, tighter, more efficient and, eventually, more profitable.

It was a tough time, and I was on my own. The 300 or so people that we had employed had all been there because of me. Because I invented the business and because I, magically, got us to the top of Google for thousands of keywords. It was a lonely job. No-body else understood how I did it, and no-one really cared – they just took their salary at the end of each month, thank you very much.

So, has SEO changed much since then? Absolutely. Is it still easy to get to the top of Google? Ridiculously easy actually, but don’t tell anyone

If you got hit by Google, I suggest you throw a few quid at this movie, if only to see the stories that unfold. It is one of the stories of our age.

Google has long been something I have a love/hate relationship with. One one-hand, it’s one of the most useful tools every conceived by man, on the other it’s a massive NSA spying machine that is digitising the entire human experience and sucking the life out all the concepts we used to hold dear like privacy, personal freedom and sovereignty.

]]>http://markattwood.com/business/dont-be-evil-the-documentary-a-review-of-a-fascinating-new-film-that-needs-your-help/feed/0Youzign Design Software Review – Design is Dead! Long Live Design!http://markattwood.com/software-reviews/youzign-design-software-review-design-is-dead-long-live-design/
http://markattwood.com/software-reviews/youzign-design-software-review-design-is-dead-long-live-design/#commentsThu, 19 Feb 2015 13:40:06 +0000http://markattwood.com/?p=2922So many of my clients and marketers find design to be a real pain in terms of time, cost and results. Yes, you can get stuff done on fiverr.com and 99designs, and often this can be good quality. But it still costs money to get the right stuff done fast, and when you got zillions […]

]]>So many of my clients and marketers find design to be a real pain in terms of time, cost and results. Yes, you can get stuff done on fiverr.com and 99designs, and often this can be good quality. But it still costs money to get the right stuff done fast, and when you got zillions of different sized social media stuff to adapt your chosen design for, it really can become and expensive pain.

Using a real, qualified, human being in the UK to design something can be mega expensive (I know, I’ve employed lots of them), but sometimes it is neccessary when you need something that reflects your brand in the right way AND helps increase conversion rates and so on.

So, enter Youzign – a new web-based graphic design software application that has now been released publicly that will allow you to do this stuff yourself, without any previous design knowledge – perfect for small business owners, bloggers, affiliate marketers – anyone who want to take control and bring the cost of design down. This is my Youzign Review.

What I like about it is that it has had over 1000 beta testers use it before launch, so it’s thoroughly bullet-proof.

How does it compare to Photoshop?

Well, it’s a lot cheaper and a lot easier to use. In fact, I can’t believe Photoshop have not evolved and produced something similar in functionality – it’s a bit like watching the demise of Blockbuster Video stores. As soon as streaming video came online, they should have sold up and become Netflix. But no, they clung on to their business model to the end. Just like Woolworths and everyone else that’s been consumed by the web.

How does it compare to Canva?

I like Canva a lot, and it’s worth checking it out if you’ve never used it. Basically, Canva is a VW Beetle, Youzign is a Porsche 911.